Alexandre Michel Gérard Desplat, 23 August 1961, Paris, France. Desplats parents, French father and Greek mother, met while students in California, USA. After their marriage they moved to France where he was born. At the age of five, he began playing piano and also became proficient on trumpet and flute. He studied with Claude Ballif and Iannis Xenakis in France
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Daniel Robert Elfman, 29 May 1953, Los Angeles County, California, USA. Elfman quit school in his late teens and with his older brother, Richard Elfman, spent time in France, then moved to West Africa. Back in the USA in the late 70s, he joined rock band Oingo Boingo, led by his brother, and also worked in 1980 on music for Richards 1980 film, Forbidden Zone, in which
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14 August 1953, Los Angeles, California, USA. A prolific composer, arranger and conductor for films from the late 70s through to the new millennium, Horner studied at the Royal College Of Music in London, at USC Los Angeles, and UCLA. In the late 70s he worked on several films for Roger Cormans New World production company, including Up From The Depths, The Lady In Red
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New York, USA. A prolific composer of film music, from the 70s through to the 90s. Silvestri studied at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, before scoring some low-budget movies and working on the US television series Chips In the late 70s and early 80s he composed the music for Las Vegas Lady, The Amazing Dobermans (starring Fred Astaire in an off-beat r
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12 September 1957, Frankfurt, Germany. Apparently, from the age of six, Zimmer wanted to be a composer, although he had no formal musical education. When he was 16 he went to school in England, and during the 70s spent some time at Air-Edel, writing jingles for television commercials. Following brief spells with synth-pop bands Buggles and Ultravox, Zimmer collaborated with
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Jerrald Goldsmith, 10 February 1929, Los Angeles, California, USA, d. 21 July 2004, Beverly Hills, California, USA. A prolific composer for films and television, from the late 50s through to the new millennium. Besides studying music at the University of South Carolina (under Hungarian composer Miklos Rozsa), Goldsmith also took lessons in office practice and secured a job a
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